15-Year-Old Ava Bland Provides Her Insight

We’ve all seen how plastic has invaded every inch of our planet, from oceans, lakes and rivers, to beaches, forests, parks, roadsides, and more.

Many of us want to stop this plastic invasion, but the problems we face are enormous and often seem overwhelming. Therefore, so many people ignore this plastics crisis when they are only faced with a problem and not a hint of a solution. For this reason, I have chosen to take small steps towards my goal of living a life with as little plastic as possible, rather than taking big leaps.

When she was 13 years old, she realized the problems our planet had and, for the last two years, she has been very proud of the progress that she had made to achieve a greater absence of plastic. A great resource worth trying is Living Without Plastic, a book by Plastic Oceans International that features more than 100 creative and fun ways to reduce your personal plastic footprint.

Here are several steps that she and her family had taken:

• Using beeswax wraps instead of cling film or aluminium foil 
• Installing a filter system in our tap to avoid buying plastic bottles of water
• Using a soda stream to make fizzy water instead of buying more plastic
• Taking our reusable bottles everywhere with us
• Bringing reusable vegetable nets to the supermarket 
• Reusing plastic bags at the supermarket
• Using metal straws or not using straws at all
• Using coffee beans instead of plastic capsules
• Buying loose vegetables instead of those pre-wrapped
• Growing our own vegetables
• Cooking from home to avoid pre-packaged food, eg. Pizzas, hummus, cakes and biscuits

References:

Plastic Oceans International. (2021). Changing Habits to Help Stop the Plastic Invasion. [online] Available at: https://plasticoceans.org/ava-bland-on-changing-habits/ [Accessed 6 Oct. 2021].

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